Isle Royale Forums

Redbad-well said.
However boaters do not take over docks. When you visit a dock with a boat tied up try to think of it as visiting another campsite or shelter. The dock is there as a site for a boat. When a backpacker visits a dock they are visiting another campers picinic table. Myself, I would never sunbathe at your shelter.

Thank you, drobarge.

The perception that boaters "take over" docks irks me a bit. The docks are for BOATS. They are our only option for access to the island(s).

drobarge wrote:Redbad-well said.
However boaters do not take over docks. When you visit a dock with a boat tied up try to think of it as visiting another campsite or shelter. The dock is there as a site for a boat. When a backpacker visits a dock they are visiting another campers picinic table. Myself, I would never sunbathe at your shelter.

I'll start by saying that I am a backpacker. I have never had any boaters make me feel like they "take over" the dock. The couple of times I have been in camp sites with boaters both have gotten along very well. I have no problems with boaters and am glad to see them if they are respectful.

I don't know that I can fully agree with the above statements or logic though.

As for fees and gas, im willing to bet as a hiker my boat ticket for a week is more than a boaters gas. I realize you have other expenses than gas as a boat owner, but you also get to use your boat for other things right. If it wasn't as expensive for me to get to the island as it is I'd love to have a yearly pass as my weekly fees per day add right up. Who wouldn't love to visit the island as much as possible. If your able to use a yearly pass more power too you, I'm jealous of you

A dock is not the same as a boaters shelter. A dock is a community spot where multiple boats could dock easily to access the land. The shelters or camp sites generally do not have multiple different groups all at them at the same time. I agree i would not sun bathe at someone elses camp site either. Large boats (with living quarters) have the ability to anchor out in the protected bay. Smaller boats that do not have living quarters will use a camp site. If a boater chooses to sleep at the dock he is choosing to sleep at a community area.

There are several other benefits to a dock that backpackers or kayakers can utilize also including easy access to filter water or a easy put in take out or loading/unloading area. Additionally docks are generally located in a community area where it is intended for those who don't know each other to gather and visit if they wish (which is why there are community fire rings at many docks).

No group should have an entitled right to a community area. I welcome boaters to come over just like kayakers or canoers or day users. Each of us have different methods and preferences to visit the island. What is called for is common courtesy to all and respect for the island.

Andy

I used a phrase to the effect of "boaters taking over the dock". I did not mean to initiate a flame war or a dispute between boaters and backpackers.

I realize that a dock is the means by which most boaters access ISRO.

What I meant to capture by my post is that I had the experience of sitting at the dock at CH filtering water when boat after boat arrived and I had to keep moving to allow boats to tie up. That experience was a very minor inconvenience and my post was not meant as a gripe against boaters. Docks can be busy places at the end of the day.

I don't see the docks as being a "community area" once the park service ferry boats have left. When private boats tie up at the docks, the docks become the campsite of those boaters whose boats are tied to the docks.

As a boater, I do not go around inspecting the campsites of hikers. I don't go check them out to see what they are doing. I would consider that to be an intrusion into the private space of the hikers and campers. But I have seen that hikers and campers seem to think of the docks as part of their own space or part of the public space, and they seem to be quite at ease coming out onto the dock when there are private boats tied up to them.

I don't quite understand the general dislike of hikers and campers towards boats. Just about every camper and hiker on Isle Royale got there on a boat, and that boat was probably much bigger, much noisier, much more polluting, and much more intrusive on the wilderness environment than my little boat. That boat that provided the transportation was probably operated by or subsidized by the Park Service, and without that boat, none of those hikers and campers would ever get to Isle Royale. The presence of these Park-run ferry boats disrupts my enjoyment of the island. I have to schedule my visits to places to coordinate with the ferries coming and going from the docks. I can only imagine how upset hikers would be if they had to avoid using certain parts of the trail so that some other group could be driven over the trail in a motorized vehicle by Park Service employees using some big, loud, polluting craft. They'd be going crazy. But that is what happens for boaters. We can't use a fundamental part of the park resources at certain times because some big, loud, polluting craft carrying another group of park users takes priority.

I get to Isle Royale by my own means, on my own boat, which has an ultra-low emission engine that produces the least air and water pollution possible. I don't rely on the Park Service to ferry me to the Island or to ferry me around the island. When I am on the island I enjoy the surroundings, I enjoy hiking, and I enjoy the peaceful evenings under the stars. I do not enjoy getting strange looks from hikers who come down to the dock I am moored to and look at me like I am--to quote an earlier reply in this thread--an alien in their world. That comment really reveals the bias of hikers. When I see a hiker, I see another person who is enjoying the park. I don't leer at him. I don't go over to check out his campsite. I don't spontaneously assume he needs a lecture on how to conduct himself in the park.

This is getting ridiculous, and really has slipped far away from the original post and is quiclkly turning into a "who hates who more" thread by a few individuals.
Tightlines, your ferry ride costs far less than operating your own boat to the island, even the gas costs more, trust me, as a boatowner I know firsthand. The ferries are by far the most cost efficient way to get to the island and don't get me wrong, I am stating fact, not beating up your post.
Jimh, you have no place stating misinformation, subsidized? You have no idea, so let's just leave this alone. ok? Big smelly polluting craft, to who, you? I suppose you hate trains and trucks too, do you trailer your boat with your bicycle? Campers leer at you, I can't imagine why with your wonderful welcoming personality. Have to schedule your visits based on dock space for ferries? So what, do you know how many docks the ferries don't go to, or don't those appeal to you? Is 10-30 minutes really that much of an inconvenience to you so others can get to and from the park too, mighty inconsiderate of you, what about campers that have to move on to a new campground each day, you can stay at the same dock for days. Stay off the dock when you are tied up, ie. living there eh? Maybe the park should put a jimh dock somewhere and surround it with electric fence and razor wire so you can go there, but no one else, and to be fair, you can't leave the dock and go ashore. Would that be a perfect situation for you? Your own private spot where you can pretend there is no one else in your world.
I know lots of hikers, boaters, canoers and kayakers, they all get along well and coexist just fine on the island. This post started with a group of boaters that had an idot or two along that didn't know how to behave, not just on the island, but from the sounds of it, anywhere they might be. A very valid complaint by the original poster, not the drivel this has degraded to. The notion that hikers hate boaters or visa-versa is absurd. Show me anyplace, public or private where every human gets along 100% of the time. I will be the first to get on a big loud smelly ferry boat to that utopia.

Wow, and here I thought this was just a civil conversation- not anymore. What can we discuss Captain?

I suspect that the cost of operating the RANGER III is not completely paid for by the fees the passengers pay. That means the passenger fees are subsidized.

In terms of maintaining a low impact on the wilderness, I do not see that having a 165-foot boat coming into the park every day is helping maintain the wilderness. That is a lot more impact than my 22-foot boat. I know the RANGER III has some modern engines, but I suspect they are producing higher air pollution than my outboard.

I only raise these concerns because the hikers seem to have a problem with boats in the park--except they forget to have a problem with boats in the park when the boats are the boats that are ferrying them around. This is a very hard position for the hikers to maintain with any sort of honesty, unless they happened to get to the park by some method other than a boat.

Actually I am quite a fan of big ships, big trucks, and big trains, but I just do not see that any of them fit into the wilderness experience of visiting IRNP. I go there to get away from big ships, big trucks, and big trains. I am willing to put up with a fleet of four or more boats ferrying people around the park, but in the context of this discussion I think it is quite reasonable to point out that all these boats carrying all these hikers is not enhancing my wilderness experience, and, it fact, it tends to detract from it because I have to schedule my travel like a master planner so I don't arrive at some dock at the wrong time on the wrong day.

This strange argument that boaters must be isolated by an electric fence: where did this nonsense come from? This is typical of the notion of the hikers that boaters should be isolated from the island. Of course, the hikers all forget that they are boaters, too, as they all came over on a boat.

Let me make an analogy to my complaint about having to vacate the dock at a certain time or day so a ferry can use it. Let's say the campgrounds had a rule that every day you had to move out of the campground at certain times so a helicopter could land there. Would hikers think that this was a non-intrusive operation? Of course not.

As for my personality and the attack now being made on it by Capt Don, this is a classic example of instituting an ad hominem argument. My personality is not the topic of discussion. The topic is "obnoxious boaters". Now that might be what you want to call me, after I have exposed some major flaws in the arguments against boats and boaters visiting the park. I actually have a wonderful personality. I just don't go along with lousy logic and slanted points of view.

All,
I wasn't trying to be inflammatory, just trying to give my point of view with a few posts I didn't agree with. If we can't do this here then where?

Don,
I realize and fully admit that a ferry ticket is less than operating costs of a boat (especially a ferry service), but my my post was addressed mainly to pleasure boats who can and I'm willing to bet do, use there boats for other things besides transportation to the island which lowers the "operational costs" of the boat.

JIMH,
Out of curiosity do you moor to the dock and sleep/cook there also? Do you use the campsites to sleep in or set up a camp at?

From my experiences with Boaters most do one of two things.

#1. Use there boat to get to the island. Fish or explore in their boats and dock when ready to relax for the night and set up camp in a camp sight. These are generally smaller boats.

#2. Use there boat to get to the island. Fish or explore in their boats and then anchor out in the protected bay and "camp" out on their boats.

Boaters in general,
As I mentioned I've never had a problem with boaters. Maybe I've been lucky to not run into the bad apples that are in every bunch (including hikers and Kayakers). I'm happy to see any respectful people come to the island.

Re how I, as a boater, use the park facilities:

We sleep on our boat, which is just one notch above sleeping in a tent--it is nothing fancy. We like to stay at a dock overnight so we can use the shore vault toilets. We cook on a small grill, usually on the dock. We do not have 120-VAC power or refrigeration on board. We do not fish.

We move around from place to place. We go on hikes from the dock site into the island to points of interest. We experience the park both from the water and on the trails. For us, the most interesting part of Isle Royale is access to the inland trails from the shore. I think the boating gestalt is much like hiking. It is about moving through the country. We just do more of the moving on the water.

From reading this forum and from a few encounters with hikers, I get the impression that hikers think they are occupying the high moral ground in their use of the park. That is a rather presumptuous position for them to take. As I see it, hikers need more support and more facilities provided by the park service than boaters. I think they are fooling themselves that they are on a wilderness experience. That they see boaters as being intrusive on their park experience is quite a self-centered point of view. Boaters don't intrude on the hikers' experience any more than the hikers intrude on the boaters' experience.

I have only visited the park in late season, when there are few hikers and fewer boats. I don't know what happens during the peak season. One of the reasons we go late in the season is we don't want to visit some place that is crowded like Disneyland. I think all park visitors might like it better if they never ran into anyone else during their visit., if they had the park to themselves. But I don't understand this feeling I get from hikers that someone visiting the park in their own boat is somehow a big annoyance that is a detraction from their experience. That is just not justifiable.

What I get from this post...

Some boaters dont like hikers, some hikers dont like boaters, some are ok with eachother, some like eachother.

I am done reading this post because I want to continue having good experiences when I meet anyone in the wilderness regardless of how they got there. I don't want preconcieved notions of "this group is bad because of X" We are all in the wilderness to be in the wilderness, enjoy it and intrude on everyone else's as little as possable!

Now if there was a way for me to block my notifications of new posts to this thread I would be set.

We've locked this topic. No more posts are allowed. We contemplated deleting the thread altogether--to keep things civil--but I believe there's some good "historical reference" material here in regards to what has occurred on IR. What started as a "have you seen this" thread to merely garner awareness soon devolved into a back-and-forth that really has no benefit here on the forums.

No one is responsible for the break down, and we're all still friends.